Meet Mr Mulliner (2 page)

But to abstain from speech did not seem to
be much better as a policy. George’s silence appeared to arouse this man’s
worst passions. His face had turned purple and he glared painfully.

“I uk-uk-asked you a sus-sus-civil
quk-quk-quk,” he said, irascibly. “Are you d-d-d-d-deaf?”

All we Mulliners have been noted for our
presence of mind. To open his mouth, point to his tonsils, and utter a
strangled gurgle was with George the work of a moment.

The tension relaxed. The man’s annoyance
abated.

“D-d-d-dumb?” he said, commiseratingly. “I
beg your p-p-p-p-pup. I t-t-trust I have not caused you p-p-p-p-pup. It m-must
be tut-tut-tut-tut-tut not to be able to sus-sus-speak
fuf-fuf-fuf-fuf-fluently.” He then buried himself in his paper, and George sank
back in his corner, quivering in every limb.

To get to East Wobsley, as you doubtless
know, you have to change at Ippleton and take the branch-line. By the time the
train reached this junction, George’s composure was somewhat restored. He
deposited his belongings in a compartment of the East Wobsley train, which was
waiting in a glued manner on the other side of the platform, and, finding that
it would not start for some ten minutes, decided to pass the time by strolling
up and down in the pleasant air.

It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was
gilding the platform with its rays, and a gentle breeze blew from the west. A
little brook ran tinkling at the side of the road; birds were singing in the
hedgerows; and through the trees could be discerned dimly the noble façade of
the County Lunatic Asylum. Soothed by his surroundings, George began to feel so
refreshed that he regretted that in this wayside station there was no one
present whom he could engage in talk.

It was at this moment that the distinguished-looking
stranger entered the platform.

The new-comer was a man of imposing
physique, simply dressed in pyjamas, brown boots, and a mackintosh. In his hand
he carried a top-hat, and into this he was dipping his fingers, taking them
out, and then waving them in a curious manner to right and left. He nodded so
affably to George that the latter, though a little surprised at the other’s
costume, decided to speak. After all, he reflected, clothes do not make the
man, and, judging from the other’s smile, a warm heart appeared to beat beneath
that orange-and-mauve striped pyjama jacket.

“N-n-n-n-nice weather,” he said.

“Glad you like it,” said the stranger. “I
ordered it specially.”

George was a little puzzled by this
remark, but he persevered.

“M-might I ask wur-wur-what you are
dud-doing?”

“Doing?”

“With that her-her-her-her-hat?”

“Oh, with this hat? I see what you mean.
Just scattering largesse to the multitude,” replied the stranger, dipping his
fingers once more and waving them with a generous gesture. “Devil of a bore,
but it’s expected of a man in my position. The fact is,” he said, linking his
arm in George’s and speaking in a confidential undertone, “I’m the Emperor of
Abyssinia. That’s my palace over there,” he said, pointing through the trees. “Don’t
let it go any farther. It’s not supposed to be generally known.”

It was with a rather sickly smile that
George now endeavoured to withdraw his arm from that of his companion, but the
other would have none of this aloofness. He seemed to be in complete agreement
with Shakespeare’s dictum that a friend, when found, should be grappled to you
with hooks of steel. He held George in a vice-like grip and drew him into a
recess of the platform. He looked about him, and seemed satisfied.

“We are alone at last,’ he said.

This fact had already impressed itself
with sickening clearness on the young man. There are few spots in the civilised
world more deserted than the platform of a small country station. The sun shone
on the smooth asphalt, on the gleaming rails, and on the machine which, in
exchange for a penny placed in the slot marked “Matches,” would supply a
package of wholesome butter-scotch—but on nothing else.

What George could have done with at the
moment was a posse of police armed with stout clubs, and there was not even a
dog in sight.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a
long time,” said the stranger, genially.

“Huh-huh-have you?” said George.

“Yes. I want your opinion of human
sacrifices.”

George said he didn’t like them.

“Why not?” asked the other, surprised.

George said it was hard to explain. He
just didn’t.

“Well, I think you’re wrong,” said the
Emperor. “I know there’s a school of thought growing up that holds your views,
but I disapprove of it. I hate all this modern advanced thought. Human
sacrifices have always been good enough for the Emperors of Abyssinia, and they’re
good enough for me. Kindly step in here, if you please.”

He indicated the lamp-and-mop room, at
which they had now arrived. It was a dark and sinister apartment, smelling
strongly of oil and porters, and was probably the last place on earth in which
George would have wished to be closeted with a man of such peculiar views. He
shrank back.

“You go in first,” he said.

“No larks,” said the other, suspiciously.

“L-l-l-l-larks?”

“Yes. No pushing a fellow in and locking
the door and squirting water at him through the window. I’ve had that happen to
me before.”

“Sus-certainly not.”

“Right!” said the Emperor. “You’re a
gentleman and I’m a gentleman. Both gentlemen. Have you a knife, by the way? We
shall need a knife.”

“No. No knife.”

“Ah, well,” said the Emperor, “then we’ll
have to look about for something else. No doubt we shall manage somehow.”

And with the debonair manner which so became
him, he scattered another handful of largesse and walked into the lamp-room.

It was not the fact that he had given his
word as a gentleman that kept George from locking the door. There is probably
no family on earth more nicely scrupulous as regards keeping its promises than
the Mulliners, but I am compelled to admit that, had George been able to find
the key, he would have locked that door without hesitation. Not being able to
find the key, he had to be satisfied with banging it. This done, he leaped back
and raced away down the platform. A confused noise within seemed to indicate
that the Emperor had become involved with some lamps.

George made the best of the respite.
Covering the ground at a high rate of speed, he flung himself into the train
and took refuge under the seat.

There he remained, quaking. At one time he
thought that his uncongenial acquaintance had got upon his track, for the door
of the compartment opened and a cool wind blew in upon him. Then, glancing
along the floor, he perceived feminine ankles.

The relief was enormous, but even in his relief
George, who was the soul of modesty, did not forget his manners. He closed his
eyes.

A voice spoke.

“Porter!”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“What was all that disturbance as I came
into the station?”

“Patient escaped from the asylum, ma’am.”

“Good gracious!”

The voice would undoubtedly have spoken
further, but at this moment the train began to move. There came the sound of a
body descending upon a cushioned seat, and some little time later the rustling
of a paper. The train gathered speed and jolted on.

George had never before travelled under
the seat of a railway-carriage; and, though he belonged to the younger
generation, which is supposed to be so avid of new experiences, he had no
desire to do so now. He decided to emerge, and, if possible, to emerge with the
minimum of ostentation. Little as he knew of women, he was aware that as a sex they
are apt to be startled by the sight of men crawling out from under the seats of
compartments. He began his manoeuvres by poking out his head and surveying the
terrain.

All was well. The woman, in her seat
across the way, was engrossed in her paper. Moving in a series of noiseless
wriggles, George extricated himself from his hiding-place and, with a twist
which would have been impossible to a man not in the habit of doing Swedish
exercises daily before breakfast, heaved himself into the corner seat. The
woman continued reading her paper.

The events of the past quarter of an hour
had tended rather to drive from George’s mind the mission which he had
undertaken on leaving the specialist’s office. But now, having leisure for
reflection, he realised that, if he meant to complete his first day of the
cure, he was allowing himself to run sadly behind schedule. Speak to three
strangers, the specialist had told him, and up to the present he had spoken to
only one. True, this one had been a pretty considerable stranger, and a less
conscientious young man than George Mulliner might have considered himself
justified in chalking him up on the score-board as one and a half or even two.
But George had the dogged, honest Mulliner streak in him, and he refused to
quibble.

He nerved himself for action, and cleared his
throat.

“Ah-h’rm!” said George.

And, having opened the ball, he smiled a
winning smile and waited for his companion to make the next move.

The move which his companion made was in
an upwards direction, and measured from six to eight inches. She dropped her
paper and regarded George with a pale-eyed horror. One pictures her a little in
the position of Robinson Crusoe when he saw the footprint in the sand. She had
been convinced that she was completely alone, and lo! out of space a voice had
spoken to her. Her face worked, but she made no remark.

George, on his side, was also feeling a
little ill at ease. Women always increased his natural shyness. He never knew
what to say to them.

Then a happy thought struck him. He had
just glanced at his watch and found the hour to be nearly four-thirty. Women,
he knew, loved a drop of tea at about this time, and fortunately there was in
his suitcase a full thermos-flask.

“Pardon me, but I wonder if you would care
for a cup of tea?” was what he wanted to say, but, as so often happened with
him when in the presence of the opposite sex, he could get no farther than a
sort of sizzling sound like a cockroach calling to its young.

The woman continued to stare at him. Her
eyes were now about the size of regulation standard golf-balls, and her
breathing suggested the last stages of asthma. And it was at this point that
George, struggling for speech, had one of those inspirations which frequently
come to Mulliners. There flashed into his mind what the specialist had told him
about singing. Say it with music— that was the thing to do.

He delayed no longer.

“Tea for two and two for tea and me for
you and you for me—”

He was shocked to observe his companion
turning Nile-green. He decided to make his meaning clearer.

“I have a nice thermos. I have a full
thermos. Won’t you share my thermos, too? When skies are grey and you feel you
are blue, tea sends the sun smiling through. I have a nice thermos. I have a
full thermos. May I pour out some for you?”

You will agree with me, I think, that no
invitation could have been more happily put, but his companion was not
responsive. With one last agonised look at him, she closed her eyes and sank
back in her seat. Her lips had now turned a curious grey-blue colour, and they
were moving feebly. She reminded George, who, like myself, was a keen
fisherman, of a newly-gaffed salmon.

George sat back in his corner, brooding.
Rack his brain as he might, he could think of no topic which could be guaranteed
to interest, elevate, and amuse. He looked out of the window with a sigh.

The train was now approaching the dear old
familiar East Wobsley country. He began to recognise landmarks. A wave of
sentiment poured over George as he thought of Susan, and he reached for the bag
of buns which he had bought at the refreshment room at Ippleton. Sentiment
always made him hungry.

He took his thermos out of the suit-case,
and, unscrewing the top, poured himself out a cup of tea. Then, placing the
thermos on the seat, he drank.

He looked across at his companion. Her
eyes were still closed, and she uttered little sighing noises. George was half
inclined to renew his offer of tea, but the only tune he could remember was
Hard-Hearted
Hanna, the Vamp from Savannah
, and it was difficult to fit suitable words
to it. He ate his bun and gazed out at the familiar scenery. Now, as you
approach East Wobsley, the train, I must mention, has to pass over some points;
and so violent is the sudden jerking that strong men have been known to spill
their beer. George, forgetting this in his preoccupation, had placed the
thermos only a few inches from the edge of the seat. The result was that, as
the train reached the points, the flask leaped like a live thing, dived to the
floor, and exploded.

Even George was distinctly upset by the
sudden sharpness of the report. His bun sprang from his hand and was dashed to
fragments. He blinked thrice in rapid succession. His heart tried to jump out
of his mouth and loosened a front tooth.